by C S Vass
“A few hours!” the Warden shouted.
Lord Djaro also seemed to have his concerns. “That’s quite a bit of time to spend here that could be used to hunt the man. Are you sure that’s necessary?”
The Warden wasn’t done. “Why alone? What mischief are you going to be up to in here?”
Godwin sighed. “You two, really know how to give a man a headache.”
“I won’t have you conjuring up some dark sorcery in my prison!” the Warden insisted.
Godwin placed the piece of fabric carefully on the ground next to the dot of blood. He approached the Warden, staring the man down with open silver eyes.
“Tell me,” Godwin said at last. “I’m dying to know. How did you get the name Ironskull?”
The Warden grinned despite himself. Obviously it was a story that he loved to tell. “It’s a war name,” the Warden said proudly. “I’m a veteran of Bloodwater. Worked my way up from nothing. Started as a lowly foot-soldier. Some damn Tarsurian thought to take my commanding officer’s head off, and I leapt to his defense. The axe took me right in the helm. Smashed it right into the side of my head. It was a blow that should have taken my head off but barely gave me a scar.”
“You’re a lucky man,” Godwin admitted. “The name is well-deserved. What of the man who struck the blow? What happened to the Tarsurian?”
“The Dark Sea drank his blood,” the Warden smirked. “And by the way, luck had nothing to do with it.”
“Impressive. Very impressive. Tell me, Ironskull. If luck has nothing to do it, how would you like to try again?”
“What?” the Warden’s face immediately filled with rage. “How dare you? Was that a threat?”
Godwin approached the Warden, drawing himself to full height. He was a good head taller than the Warden. “I have listened to you badger me with your simple-minded suspicions and ill-begotten bigotries long enough. I am a Shigata here by order of King Mexdon Boldfrost. I am here to clean up a mess that you are responsible for, and my patience has now run out. So if we need to resort to threats like school-boys, then so be it. But understand, my threats are not idle. If you bother me with your imbecilic fears about magic one more time, I am going to take this sword out and see if Ironskull might be worthy of the name Steelskull. Do I make myself plain?”
The Warden stammered for a minute trying to find some way to salvage himself, but Godwin’s face was a mask of death. They both knew there was nothing about his words that was meant to be boastful. He was simply stating his intent.
At last the Warden managed to untie his tongue. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. If you want to play in the cell, then so be it. I won’t interfere with a man sent by the King. I have a search mission to oversee.”
The Warden left, muttering insults that he surely thought Godwin couldn’t here. The Shigata paid him no mind.
“I…I am sorry the two of you cannot seem to work well together,” Lord Djaro said.
“It’s of little consequence. You can leave now too, Lord Djaro. I’ll need the cell for a few hours. Please send someone with a candle. The torch will be a poor tool for my purpose.”
Lord Djaro nodded. “Very well, Shigata. I wish you well in your endeavor. You’ll be richly rewarded should you kill the criminal.”
Lord Djaro left, leaving Godwin momentarily alone. Inside the cell he began to rummage through the many hidden pockets of his black cloak. On the ground he laid out a firm sheepskin cloth to place his materials on. He then found several vials and laid them meticulously on the cloth.
A young guard no older than fifteen with tufts of red hair poking from under an ill-fitting helm approached him with a candle. “I was sent to bring this to you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“Sir?”
“Hm?”
“May I…may I watch what you’re doing?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I have…I have an interest in magic, sir.”
“Then it’ll be a poor show. This is much closer to chemistry than magic.”
“But it’s both, isn’t it?”
Godwin sighed. “I suppose it is. Very well, boy. I might as well try to teach you something. There’s no point in you trying to imitate this later and poisoning yourself.”
The boy made an eager whooping noise and knelt next to Godwin. “What’s in all of these?” he asked, pointing to the vials.
Godwin removed a mortar and pestle from a bag at his waist. Then he pointed to a vial. “This is water,” Godwin said. He took the vial of water and poured it into the mortar. He then found the drop of blood he marked with the cloth. It was such a small amount, maybe not enough. He used a dagger to gently lift the snow the blood was on and placed it into the mortar with the water.
“Water. And blood?” The boy furrowed his face.
“Indeed,” Godwin said. “But we’re far from done.” He lifted another vial.
“What’s in that one?”
“Eagle tears. Very expensive. But we’ll need the lysozyme that they contain. The lysozyme in eagle tears contains a magical component that gives the birds such incredible sight. Sight I plan to use. But not without adding something else.”
The boy watched with surprise as Godwin took a carrot out from his sack. He chopped several slices off with the dagger and began to crush it with the pestle.
“Ah! I get it! The carrot is going to help your eyes too! They have nu…nutrients that are good for your eyes! My gran says so.”
“You’re a smart kid,” Godwin said without interrupting the rhythmic pattern he crushed the carrots with. “All the more reason you should be careful if you ever try to mess around with potions. The carrots are meant only for flavor. I find that blood and eagle tears are difficult on the taste buds.”
The boy oohed as Godwin finished crushing the ingredients and then added a splash more water. “This potion is a good way to find someone if you only have a trace amount of their flesh with you. A flake of skin. A drop of blood. Maybe a hair or two. Not a nail or tooth. Don’t ask me why. It’s too complicated to get into now.”
“But what’s the potion going to do?” the boy asked.
Godwin smiled and lifted the mortar. “It’s going to help me see.” He downed the ingredients in one gulp. “Normally it would take a long time to work, but the blood sample is so small that the lysozyme in the eagle tears won’t need much time to react with the bit of blood we have. Now be silent. If you interrupt this and it fails me I’m going to do to you what I’m supposed to do to Kanjo.”
The boy was either respectful or frightened, because he immediately shut his mouth and kept it shut. Godwin closed his eyes and waited.
Almost immediately the darkness rippled in front of him. He felt a powerful surge of pressure in his eyes. He knew there would be small amounts of damage sustained from using the potion. Those who resorted to it too often were known to go blind. But this was a special occasion.
As the darkness lessened, Godwin saw the Chillway as if he floated above it. The sun was out and shinning, and a strong wind rustled the leaves of the tall evergreens that flanked the side of the landscape.
That’s when Godwin saw him.
A young man, perhaps a decade younger than himself, with dark hair. He was skinny and shivering in a grey fur cloak. Godwin watched, floating above the man as he approached a lonely house in the Chillway. It was an inn, one that Godwin was familiar with. As Kanjo stepped inside Godwin’s vision blurred and he returned to his own body.
“Did you find him? Did you find him?” the boy eagerly asked.
Godwin knew better than to answer. He quickly gathered up the supplies he had left out on the floor of the cell. As he left, he turned to the boy. “Find yourself a real master before you start tampering with magic,” he told him.
The boy nodded.
Godwin hadn’t planned on saying anything to anyone as he left the prison, but when he returned to the front gate, the Warden stopped him.
“Shigata,” he said gruffly. “I thought you needed more time.”
“Sometimes I forget how quickly I can work without being bothered.”
“Hm. Fine by me. Before you leave though, you have a visitor.”
“A what?”
Who would be coming to see him in Snowpit? Before Godwin could ask any more questions, the Warden was walking briskly away. As his footsteps echoed down the hall, a sharp voice called Godwin’s name.
Heart racing, Godwin turned around. “You,” he breathed.
The blow took him hard in the face.
Chapter 3
The last of the wheat fields yawned upwards stretching towards a distant sun. Off in the horizon, the rolling hills of the Chillway swept across the landscape.
Faela was not looking forward to the cold journey to Iryllium in winter. She thought that it ought to be criminal to summon people to the capital during the cold season. Double so during the Festival of the Wolf Moon. She bristled at the thought of Tallium’s normally quiet streets busy with laughter, the smells of elven honey-bread freshly baked, and fireworks of blue and gold that would explode among the chorus of stars.
“We’re going to Iryllium, not a funeral,” Paetrick smiled at her. The young monk was one of the few members of their group who Faela found that she could tolerate. That, despite the fact that she knew he desired her. After they first met she decided that it was only natural and there was no reason to be offended. He was not yet eighteen, and his time in the Temple of Ice and Shadow had sheltered him from most all interactions with women.
“Really? You should tell that to the rest of your friends then,” she replied. Unlike the green-eyed and good-natured Paetrick, the other dozen monks she traveled with were stony-faced elders who would no sooner let a smile pass their lips than a fart pass their arses.
A grizzled old man with ghostly blue stubble stared angrily at her, but she paid him no mind. They would hold their tongues in her presence, but the moment they thought her out of earshot she would hear the mutters.
Hybrid. Halfling. Humanoid.
“I hear the temple in Iryllium is so big that they can walk an elephant down its halls,” Paetrick said.
She smiled. “An elephant? What would the gods of ice and shadow have need of an elephant for?”
“Elephants are brilliant,” Paetrick said. “Monk Tishu said that they can remember your name and even do basic maths.”
“Pipe down, boy. You sound like a damn fool rambling about elephants.”
Faela didn’t even bother to turn and see which old geezer had spoken.
“Boy,” Paetrick grumbled. “I’m seventeen.”
“Seventeen and you think you’re seventy,” Faela chided. “Why join the Temple before you’ve even set foot outside of Tallium? How can you know your place in the world before you’ve even seen the world?”
“I know a little,” Paetrick said.
“You know that the monks don’t enforce celibacy like they used to, and I suppose that’s good enough for you.”
Paetrick’s face burned bright red. Faela laughed. She had spent enough time with him over the last few days moving through Coldclaw that she knew how to make the boy blush.
“This is as good a place as any to stop,” one of the older monks declared.
Faela groaned. These old men she traveled with needed to rest their weary bones five times a day and relieve their bladders twice that. She knew by now there was no arguing with them. Paetrick was too young to be of any importance, and she was a mere half-elf.
Their midday meal consisted of fire-warmed porridge slick with butter and dried apricots. Faela reflected bitterly that their slow pace of travel and consistent meals might have made this a pleasant trip had the company not been so terrible.
“So what are you going to do when you meet the King?” Paetrick asked.
“Meet the King? Who said anything about meeting the King?”
“He summoned you, didn’t he? He summoned all of the Dragons, so why wouldn’t he meet with you?”
Faela chuckled. “When the King summons you somewhere, you go. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to get off his wrinkled arse and speak with you personally.”
Paetrick blinked while swallowing a large spoonful of porridge. “Why would he summon all the Dragons if he didn’t have a reason for meeting with you?”
“Why do Kings do anything?” Faela said, rising. She enjoyed Paetrick’s company, but being ten years older than him meant that sometimes she needed a break.
“Where are you going?” he called after her as she walked off towards the woods.
“Stay,” she said, without looking back.
She had made it about fifty feet when she heard the crunching of a branch under a shoe that indicated he had not obeyed. She rolled her eyes but also smiled.
They walked quietly together alongside a creek with fresh blue water that sparkled under the sun. Winter was upon them, but somehow it never really felt like winter in Coldclaw. Not to her, anyway. But she knew that would change the moment they entered the Chillway.
She sat down next to the creek and stared at her reflection in the slow-moving waters. Vibrant silver eyes surrounded by a nest of black hair stared back at her. She was thin and fit with high cheek bones. Many people considered her attractive.
“Tell me,” Paetrick said as he sat beside her. “Why did King Boldfrost summon the Star-blessed?”
“He didn’t summon all of the Star-blessed,” Faela said. “He summoned the Dragons. And I wasn’t deceiving you the other thousand times you asked. I don’t know. All I know is that it’ll be my head if I ignore it.”
“What’s it like to be a Dragon?”
She sighed. Whatever the boy had in his head tumbled out of his mouth not a moment later.
“Dragons are one of the rarest of all signs,” Paetrick went on as was his habit when she kept her silence. “My father was a Star-blessed. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Only a hundred times,” Faela said.
He chuckled as if she had told him a joke. “He was an Imp.”
It was her turn to laugh. He hadn’t mentioned that detail before. “Was he as notorious for abusing those powers as all the other Imps out there?”
Paetrick looked insulted. “I’ll have you know that invisibility can be used for much more than spying on women while they wash in the river!”
“Of course,” Faela said. “I bet it can also get you into bathhouses and bedrooms.”
Paetrick blushed, but he also laughed. Then sighed. “He died too young, my father. I barely ever knew him.”
Faela shifted uncomfortably. She was still getting used to Paetrick’s unusual habit of telling her deeply felt emotions without warning.
At last she said, “Was he from Tallium? Your father.”
“Saebyl.”
“A man of the Shield. Well, it’s not a surprise he left. I imagine life was very hard in Saebyl after Bloodwater.”
“I never heard him speak of it,” Paetrick said. “But of course, I was so young that I’m sure he wouldn’t have much to say to me. I do know he lost his whole family.”
“Did he fight in the war?”
“No. But I don’t know how he avoided it. All Star-blessed had been recruited by King Boldfrost. But somehow he slipped by. Eventually made his way up north.”
“Lucky he did,” Faela said. “I know you haven’t traveled the world. I have. Let me tell you, there’s nowhere in Gaellos like Tallium or Brentos. There’s nowhere else where you can be as you are, do as you like. Human, elf, dwarf, ogre. So long as you live by the law and don’t cause trouble, they let you be. That’s a beautiful thing.”
“You can’t really mean there’s nowhere like that,” Paetrick said.
She smiled sadly and said nothing else.
They enjoyed each other’s company for a short time longer before heading back. The monks acted like they were greatly delayed by having to wait for Faela, but she heard them quickly stand up an
d start packing their supplies with great haste the moment they detected her approaching.
They traveled on by foot. Paetrick kept trying to start a conversation with the old monks by asking them questions about Iryllium and what he could expect upon arriving there, but they were all insistent on keeping their silence.
Eventually the road widened and the thin layer of snow on the ground hardened. Above, the sky turned from blue to grey and the leafless branches of sleeping trees gave way to thick evergreens that stood like sentinels. They had officially entered the Chillway.
That night they lit a massive bonfire. The monks wanted a hearty meal to prepare them for the hard journey ahead, and they cooked rice and roasted boar meat. Four donkeys had been recruited for the journey, and they bore loads containing what Faela considered a woefully unnecessary array of cooking supplies for their holy masters.
As usual, Paetrick was unperturbed by the wall of silence the monks had erected. Oblivious, he chattered on.
“I bet in Iryllium we’ll eat well every night! Do you think they’ll let me cook in the temple, Monk Dellio? Will I be too busy with other duties? I wonder what kind of foods they’ll have for us to prepare. I bet it’s harder to get animals right from the wild so far from the northern forests. Do you—”
“Prayers!” One of the monks shouted.
Faela had to admit she was not too displeased with the sudden announcement. She put her head down with the rest of them and let her mind wander.
Internally she wished she did know why King Boldfrost had summoned all the realm’s Dragons. It was surely for nothing good. Dragons were the sign of power, the ones who could turn the tide of losing battles with a mere shifting of the stars.
At the thought she chanced a glance upwards. The rest of the monks still had their heads bowed low. Up above blue stars drifted like ghosts sliding past each other in the night. Faela was no expert at reading the astronomical pattern of the heavens, but as a Dragon she had learned to pay attention to certain signs. A particular rectangular figure for a head. Two extremely bright stars at the tip of the wings, and four duller ones that formed the tail.